by Mari Carr
“Wow,” she whispered.
That was probably the hottest fucking thing anyone had ever said to her in her life. More than that, it confirmed that she wasn’t the only one suffering from a bad case of kinky fantasies. Lochlan wanted the same things.
Was that what had prompted her unexpected response to him? Was there something unspoken in the way he acted around her that made her want to check all her troubles at the door and disappear into him for a night…or twenty? Had his darker desires somehow kick-started these lustful dreams in her?
For the first time since dinner, his lips curled up into a grin. “Is that a good wow or are you contemplating calling 911?”
“Do I need to call 911?”
He shook his head. “I’d never hurt you, May. Never make you do anything you didn’t want. You say no and it’s no. No questions asked.”
“I’m tired,” she whispered.
Lochlan cupped her cheek once more. This time she turned her face toward the sweet touch, soaking it up. “I know you are, sweetheart.”
One night.
She knew what she needed. Turned out it was the exact same thing she wanted.
“Lochlan?”
“Yeah?”
May took a deep breath and prayed she wasn’t making the biggest mistake of her life.
“I’m fine.”
6
Lochlan’s entire body went tight as he tried to come to grips with the avalanche that had been slamming over him since seeing May’s home, learning about her family, her life.
Never, not once in his thirty-one years, had he felt like this. Felt this overpowering need to take over.
Which was ridiculous when he considered it. After all, he was the CEO of a large company, a dominant lover by nature, a man used to being in charge. All of that came natural.
But that wasn’t what he wanted here. This was something so much more primal, unstoppable.
He wanted May.
Wanted her body, her heart, her soul. Wanted the two little girls down the hall to stay there forever, wanted to make more kids with her, wanted to shoulder all her problems for her. He never wanted her to sleep on a couch again. Nothing but soft beds and feather pillows would be good enough for her.
Lochlan wanted everything he’d spent a lifetime avoiding.
Those feelings crashed in on him the second he saw Chloe wrapped around May’s legs, saw the genuine love in her eyes, even as she took in the wreckage of her apartment.
Hell, he wasn’t sure he didn’t start to feel that way the first day she’d walked into his office, facing him down despite his rudeness, looking him straight in the eye and telling him she could do the job. More than that, she’d convinced him—right then and there—that she could. And she had.
This woman was invincible.
And she was going to be his.
He grasped her waist, pulling her lower body against his own, letting her feel exactly what impact she was having on him.
She didn’t shy away, didn’t demure or pretend that his hard-on wasn’t there.
Lochlan started to lower his head, but she turned her face away, shaking her head. “You can’t kiss me.”
He placed a finger under her chin, forcing her to look at him. “Why not?”
“Because that would introduce an emotion to something that should probably just be physical.”
“You’re right,” he said, not giving in. “It would.”
“That wouldn’t be smart.”
Lochlan tilted his head as he looked at her. “Actually, I think it would be.”
Before she could lodge any further complaints, he placed his lips on hers and kissed her, hard. Their lips parted at the same time, and he dipped his tongue inside her mouth, tasting her, breathing her in.
When May’s arms wrapped around his neck, he deepened the kiss even more. He could spend the rest of the night doing nothing more than this, but that wasn’t what May needed.
He gently broke the union.
And realized in that second, he was a true Collins…and the curse really was a blessing.
As he looked at her, he knew this was it for him. This was what he wanted his life to be. Him and her. And whatever else came with that. Families, work, health concerns, children, maybe a cat or two.
His hands drifted down to her skirt, and he slowly inched it up as the two of them studied each other’s faces. May’s face was flushed, her eyes heavy-lidded, her expression one of certainty. It was a welcome change from earlier at the hospital, when she’d looked frantic, terrified, worried.
Her skirt wasn’t super tight, but it was snug enough that once the material was bunched around her waist, it stayed.
He ran his hands over the cheeks of her ass. She was wearing practical boy-cut panties, something that felt right for her. May wasn’t the thong type. He pressed his fingers beneath the soft cotton, stroking the silky skin of her ass.
Her eyes drifted closed for a long moment, before opening to look at him once more. She wasn’t shying away from this, from him.
Lochlan tugged her panties down, May helped by shifting her hips to ease the path. When they fell to the floor, she stepped out of them.
He kissed her again, unable to stop himself, to move them to the next level. If he could freeze time right here, with his lips on hers, he would do it.
May’s fingers ran along his chest and he longed to strip off his own clothing, to feel her hands on his skin.
He wanted everything…right now. But more than that, he needed to know she was okay with this. Today’s culture, its climate, had him feeling overly protective of her. He had to know this was truly what she wanted, that she wasn’t feeling coerced or scared. “May. You can say no at any point and I’ll stop.”
She smiled at him. “I’m fine,” she repeated, purposely using the words to taunt him, to get him to move on to the next part.
He grinned, even as he grasped her arm and pulled her to the bed. Lochlan sat down, then tugged her over his lap. May didn’t resist. She wasn’t going to pretend to fight him. When she looked over her shoulder at him and smiled, he couldn’t resist for a second longer.
He lifted his hand and brought it down on her ass, roughly, with enough force to show her exactly what she had invited.
She jumped in surprise, but didn’t try to push away. So he smacked her again. And again.
As he spanked her, he told her what to expect from now on. “I’m going to do this every time you lie to me, May. Every time you tell me you’re fine when I know you aren’t. You can’t keep bottling things up, pretending you aren’t hurting or scared.”
May’s legs parted slightly and he accepted the unspoken invitation, pressing two fingers inside her.
“God,” she groaned. “Yes.” She was dripping wet, her pussy clenching tightly. She was already at the precipice, close to going over.
“I’m going to help you forget, going to show you a better way to handle things. When you’re overwhelmed or starting to panic, you find me. I’ll make it all go away.”
Lochlan withdrew his fingers despite her complaint and spanked her again. Her ass was pink, hot to the touch, yet she’d begun to anticipate his swing, rising up to meet them, asking for more.
A dozen strokes in, he heard it.
A soft cry.
Finally. She was letting go.
He tried to lift her, pull her up to comfort her, but she shook him off. “No. Keep going. More.”
“May, you’re crying.”
“No I’m not,” she lied, the thick sound of her voice betraying her.
“Let me hold you.”
Her eyes were full of challenge when she looked up at him and spat out the words, “I’m fine.”
May wouldn’t give in easily. She’d clearly spent too many years suppressing her emotions. Lochlan wanted her to be able to release that pain with him, to trust him enough to shoulder some of the load, but she wasn’t there. Yet.
He spanked her again, then drove three fingers d
eep.
She reared up. “Oh my God! Please. Please, Lochlan.”
He thrust in and out roughly. He’d intended to tease this out, make her wait, make her beg, but Lochlan changed his mind. May needed to come. Badly.
They had all the time in the world to learn how to draw this out. For now, he wanted to give her exactly what she needed.
She met his fingers on each inward push, shoving her hips back as much as she could in her position to add even more force. He knew the moment her body started to go over.
“May,” a tiny voice called out from across the condo.
She stopped moving, going perfectly still.
Everything in her shut down in an instant. One second she was lying across his lap, the next she was standing several feet away, tugging her skirt down.
She was breathing heavily, her face red. He watched as she tried to shake off the residual effects of her denied orgasm, her trembling hands smoothing the wrinkles out of her skirt.
“May,” Lochlan said, trying to help her calm down. “It’s okay.”
“I shouldn’t have…I…we…that was a mistake.”
He shook his head as he stood. He wasn’t about to let her go there. Nothing about what they’d just done was wrong.
“No. May, listen—”
Chloe called out her name again. The little girl’s voice was sleepy and uncertain. No doubt she’d woken up in a strange place and gotten scared.
“I have to go to her.”
Before he could say another word, May had the door open and was gone. He walked to the doorway, watching as she rushed across the living room and disappeared into the other guest room. He took a few minutes to calm himself down, trying to will away the rock-hard erection.
May had to be hurting as well.
When he felt more composed, he walked toward the girls’ room. He heard May reading from a book she’d packed in their overnight bag. Leaning against the hallway wall outside the door, he listened to the rhythmic pattern of the story about a grandmother and a sleeping child in a napping house.
He started to push away from the wall when the story ended, but Chloe’s voice stopped him.
“I miss Mommy and Daddy.”
Lochlan’s throat tightened at the pain in the child’s voice.
“I miss them too,” May said.
Chloe sounded near tears when she said, “I want to go home.”
“We’ll go home first thing in the morning.”
“No,” Chloe said. “I mean my home.” She started crying quietly as May made soothing noises.
Lochlan’s heart broke for all of them. They’d lost so much at such young ages. And not just Jenny and Chloe, but May as well. Sometimes he had to remind himself she was only twenty-four years old. They’d celebrated her birthday like everyone else’s in the company a month earlier. He’d given her a stupid gift card to a local restaurant.
“It’s going to be okay, Chloe. I’m right here and I’m always going to take care of you. I know it’s been a rough week, but we’re going to be okay. We’ve got each other and we’re going to be,” Lochlan heard the slight hitch in May’s voice when she said, “fine.”
He walked back to the living room and poured himself a scotch, sipping it slowly as he stood by the window, in the same spot May had occupied earlier, and studied the lights on the water.
After an hour had passed, he walked back to the guest room and peered inside. May was nestled in the middle of the bed, both girls curled against her, the three of them sound asleep.
For thirty-one years, he’d plowed headfirst through his life, working hard to build a thriving business while eschewing romantic relationships, believing success and financial security were the end goal.
He was wrong. The end goal was this. A woman to love. A family to provide and care for. A home that would keep all of them safe.
Lochlan went to his own bedroom and dropped down on the bed. Then, he reached for his phone and dialed.
“Hey, man. You’re calling late. I was just about to turn in.”
Lochlan knew Padraig would still be awake. He closed the pub at eleven, then walked to the apartment he’d shared with the love of his life, Mia, before her untimely death.
“When did you know, Paddy?”
“Know what?”
“Know that Mia was the one for you? That you loved her and wanted to be with her no matter what?”
“The night she came into the pub, fighting back tears after talking to the doctor. I followed her out and she told me about the brain tumor. She was the bravest, strongest person I’d ever met, and I just…knew.”
Lochlan sighed. Mia had died six months earlier, she and Padraig stealing not quite a year together before the tumor took her life.
“You figured it out, didn’t you?” Padraig asked.
“Figured what out?”
“May Flowers.”
Lochlan chuckled. “No one likes a know-it-all, Paddy.”
His cousin laughed, unoffended. “There was something about the way you described May at the pub that first night, the way your back went up when Finn and Colm joked about asking her out. It reminded me of the way I’d felt about Mia after spending that whole night walking around and talking to her. It’s like there was suddenly a light inside me that had been turned off my whole life. Then I met her and it flashed on, lit up everything inside, and all of a sudden, I wasn’t looking at my world in shadows. I could see it all clear as day.”
Every word Padraig said rang true. Lochlan had thought his life was settled. Now he realized he’d just been waiting for her. He cleared his throat and searched for something to say that wouldn’t give away how much his cousin’s words had affected him. “I swear you’re getting more like Pop Pop every damn day.”
“That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
Lochlan laughed. “I mean it, Paddy. I needed to hear all of that. It helped.”
“You know Pop Pop fell head over heels for Grandma Sunday the first night he saw her. He told me the story once.”
“Must be something to do with the name Patrick,” Lochlan joked, considering his never-used first name.
“Or the Collins curse. Falling fast and hard doesn’t seem restricted to just us Pats.”
“Problem is, May isn’t there yet. She’s got a lot on her shoulders and I don’t think she’s going to be able to let her guard down.”
“Plus you’ve only known her a couple of months. Declaring your undying love after that short amount of time will probably make you come off as slightly insane.”
Lochlan knew that. “I haven’t said anything to her yet. And I’m not going to. I’m only letting you know I’m insane. May will have to figure that out later.”
“Sounds like a smart way to play it.”
Then Lochlan groaned, something else occurring to him. “You’re going to tell Colm about this conversation, aren’t you?”
“Calling him the second we hang up. After all, he predicted you’d be the next to go down.”
“You know, I’m living for the day love bites him in the ass too.”
“You and me both, cuz. And, um, I just want to make sure you realize…” Padraig obviously wasn’t comfortable with whatever he wanted to say next.
“Realize what?”
“You know May comes with an instant family. Two of the K words.”
“That’s not a problem. Not at all.” It wasn’t. Because it wasn’t just May who’d slipped into his heart. The protector in him wanted to make everything better for those two sweet, broken little girls. They deserved a hell of a lot better than the shit life had given them so far. Luckily, he had the time and money to spoil them properly.
“Wow,” Padraig said with a chuckle. “Major fall. Bet that hurt a little. You good?”
“Yeah. I’ve got a bit of work to do, but I know what my end goal is, and I’m not giving up until I get there. I can’t.”
“Welcome to the blessed Collins club. It’s about time y
ou succumbed to the so-called curse. Night.”
“Good night.”
Lochlan disconnected the call and tried to figure out his next move. He realized he was at least seventy-two miles ahead of where he should be, but he’d never been the type to move slowly. He decided what he wanted and then he worked tirelessly to get there.
He walked to the bathroom, taking a quick shower. It was nearly midnight, but he was wide awake, wired.
When he returned to the room, he saw he had one missed text. A group one from Colm telling Finn he owed him twenty bucks.
Great. By tomorrow, his whole family would know he’d fallen for his admin assistant. Funny how that didn’t bother Lochlan a bit.
He laid down in bed, sleep taking him quicker than he expected.
Lochlan was almost surprised when he woke the next morning. The sun was shining through the window, and a glance at the clock told him he’d forgotten to set his alarm.
He hopped out of bed, tossed some lounge pants on over his boxers and walked through the living room to wake May and the girls. At this rate, Chloe and Jenny would be late for school, and he and May late to work. Good thing he was the boss.
The guest bedroom was empty, the bed made, everything put back so perfectly, he might not have known anyone had even slept there.
Walking back to the living room, he saw a note on the table near the door.
Lochlan,
Took a cab back to our place so I could get the girls on the bus to school. Mom’s surgery is at nine. I might be a few minutes late to work, but I will make up the time, I promise.
Thank you so much for all your help last night.
May
Lochlan frowned. The only thing positive in the note was the fact that she’d called him by his first name and hadn’t tried to revert back to that Mr. Wallace crap.
“One step forward, thirty-seven back,” he muttered to himself.
Lochlan returned to his room to get ready then headed to work. More than a few employees glanced up in surprise to see him coming in an hour late.
He’d only been there half an hour, which had been just enough time to fix a few things on his calendar, before May arrived. She rushed inside and came straight to his doorway.